The Republican fileThe late Eva Trager is seen in her store Country Comfort in Northampton in 2003.

NORTHAMPTON – Eva Trager was known to some as the “Queen of Main Street,” and now she has her statue.

The Eva Trager Memorial Statue, a bronze owl, is to be unveiled in front of her former Main Street store, Country Comfort, at 4 p.m. on Friday, the first anniversary of her death. Eight other downtown pioneers, all deceased, are honored on the statue along with Trager. More than 100 people and businesses contributed to the project.

If it seems odd that Northampton has what amounts to its own Downtown Hall of Fame, stand at the Trager Memorial and look around. What was just another decaying Massachusetts downtown in the 1970s has become a tourist destination of unique, owner-operated shops and stores and restaurants thanks to people like the nine memorialized on the statue.

Bashir Ahamed traveled the world to get his Oriental rugs. David Bourbeau was a bookbinder and leather artist. The municipal parking garage is named after E. John Gare, III, a Main Street jeweler. Douglas Kohl and Michael Sissman preserved and developed some of the cornerstone buildings downtown.

Bruce MacMillan ran Broadside Books. Denis Perlman created Silverscape Designs. Peter McNulty facilitated the development of downtown from his post at the city’s Department of Public Works.

Trager was among the first to stake out a place on Main Street. When she opened Country Comfort in 1972, success in downtown Northampton was far from a sure thing. With her salty but warm personality and fascinating selection of clothes and jewelry, Trager built so strong a customer base that her death last year sent all of downtown into mourning.

Greg Stone, an artist who also arrived in Northampton in the 1970s, would stop to share a cup of coffee or a cigarette with Trager whenever he passed Country Comfort.

“I couldn’t get by the store if she saw me,” he said.

It didn’t take him long to come up with an idea when Stone was asked to created a memorial sculpture. The bronze owl evokes the life spirit of Indian folklore.

“To me, an owl is very soulful and very wise,” he said.

Just as the commercial pioneers cited the memorial made a name for downtown Northampton, Stone, along with people like Rich Michelson and Leonard Baskin, have made Northampton renowned for its art. Stone’s work, which ranges from studies of birds to urban landscapes to portraits of local street people, has been in display at most of the galleries in the area from time to time. His paintings hang in establishments like Packard’s. Another Stone bronze graces the entrance to the Hampshire YMCA.

Nancy Donato, who was on the memorial committee, said is was surprisingly easy raising $22,000.

“People were so amazingly supportive,” she said.

Donato’s clothing store, J. Rich, has moved into the former County Comfort space at 153 Main St., so she will have a picture window view of the memorial. Inside, Trager’s spirit is felt in the brick walls and wooden floors and leaded glass windows of the store.